To be honest, if he had any choice in the matter, Kitahara truly did not want to get involved in events that were this obviously suspicious.
But from a distance, he had seen the fleeting disappointment on Tamamo Cross's face. He remembered how excited she had been before they set out, and that sheet of paper crammed with tiny writing, the kind you could tell at a glance had taken a great deal of effort.
Reason told him that the smart thing to do was stay as far away from these bizarre events as possible. He also knew full well that even if he walked away right now, Tamamo Cross would never blame him for it. If anything, she would just feel guilty for dragging him out here for nothing.
And yet he had still chosen to stay.
He had even taken her hand first.
Was it because he no longer wanted to slack off? Because he was no longer afraid of trouble?
Of course not.
It was just that compared to slacking off or dealing with trouble, what he found even harder to accept was seeing Tamamo Cross like this.
Yes, he knew she had her convictions. He knew she had her bottom lines. He knew she didn't want anyone's pity.
No matter what happened, no matter what hardship she faced, she could still keep up that breezy, easygoing front. She was strong and sensible to an almost unreasonable degree, and that was one of the reasons Kitahara liked her so much.
But the problem was this:
Was everything that looked so admirable on the surface really completely right?
Kitahara didn't think so.
Holding Tamamo Cross's hand, he quickly finished the sign-up process for the event, then led her into the participating store and started walking through it with her hand still in his.
Even so, although he had brought Tamamo Cross inside, Kitahara was still a little uneasy deep down.
After all, judging from what he had seen earlier, Tamamo Cross had been quite resistant to touching him at all. He had already braced himself for her to resist him—or even suspect him, or resent him.
But strangely enough, the Tamamo Cross who had looked so put off by him before, the one who had pulled back the instant she brushed his hand, did not resist in the slightest once he actually took her hand. From the moment he grasped it to the moment he led her all the way inside, he hadn't met even the slightest bit of resistance.
If anything, she had seemed faintly cooperative. Obedient, even.
This kid...
Looking back at Tamamo Cross, who was quietly following behind him with her head lowered so that he couldn't make out her expression, Kitahara thought for a moment and decided he should explain himself first.
"Um, Tama, I know you probably don't really want to do something like this, but since we're already here, and you put so much work into preparing for this, I felt like it would be a shame to just leave without even taking a look..."
"But don't worry. I'm not trying to force you into anything. I just thought that if we at least came in holding hands and had a look around, then it wouldn't be a completely wasted trip. If you really don't want to, just tell me. We can leave right now if you want..."
"And also, I remember you once told me that you think of me as family. What I didn't tell you back then is that I pretty much feel the same way about you. So just think of it as family accompanying you around these events. There's no need to feel burdened by it..."
Kitahara rambled on loosely as they walked, and as they passed a certain shelf, he caught sight of one of the bargain items listed on Tamamo Cross's sheet. After pulling out the list to confirm he'd remembered right, he reached over, took it down, and held it out to her.
"I saw this on your list. If you're really unhappy about all this, how about I buy it for you as an apology?"
"...No."
Faced with the item Kitahara was offering her, Tamamo Cross finally spoke again after a long silence.
And as she answered, she also took the item from his hand with her free hand, then raised her head. There was a faint flush on her face, and she averted her gaze slightly as she spoke.
"I was the one who asked you to come help me in the first place. If anyone should be apologizing, it should be me. How could I let you apologize to me..."
Seeing Tamamo Cross finally respond—and seeing that she actually seemed to be in a fairly good mood—Kitahara gradually relaxed as well and answered with a smile.
"You said it, then. If you don't agree now and regret it later, I'm not buying it for you anymore."
"Who's going to regret it, you idiot?!"
At that, Tamamo Cross couldn't help giving him a furtive kick. Then, after a brief pause, she held out her hand to him.
"Give it back."
"What?"
"That paper."
Tamamo Cross glared at him and said irritably,
"You interrupted me just now, and now I can't even remember half the stuff I was going to buy. We're short on time, so hurry up and hand it over. Once we finish here, we still have to get to the next place."
We're still going to the next place?
Hearing that, Kitahara raised an eyebrow. After confirming that Tamamo Cross really had returned to normal, he handed the paper back to her, and then, under her guidance, began wandering back and forth through the store as they bought what they needed.
Now that he'd confirmed Tamamo Cross's mood had stabilized, that she didn't seem resistant to him anymore, and that she had gone back to shopping normally, Kitahara thought it over and decided there probably wasn't much for him to do on her side for the moment.
So instead of focusing on Tamamo Cross, he started observing the store itself, trying to figure out the reason behind these strange promotions.
Originally, Kitahara had assumed something this obviously fishy would be difficult to investigate.
But contrary to expectation, he didn't even need to do any real digging. Just from casually looking around while accompanying Tamamo Cross, he quickly found a clue—a Mejiro family crest.
So this place belongs to the Mejiros?
Looking at the crest on the wall, Kitahara thought for a moment and vaguely recalled something.
At the family social gathering earlier this year, when he had been chatting with Mejiro Ardan, he remembered her mentioning that because of her physical condition, she couldn't train too heavily and had a fair amount of free time.
So after some consideration, her family had handed over the Mejiro properties around Tracen to her to manage. Half because they were worried that if she had too much idle time, she'd keep overthinking things and spiral into dark thoughts.
And half because she really did have a talent for this sort of thing. Even though she hadn't graduated yet, after she took over management of the Mejiro businesses around Tracen, not only had they not lost money, their performance had actually improved quite a bit.
And when they had discussed the matter back then, Kitahara remembered Mejiro Ardan saying that the main purpose of the Mejiro properties around Tracen was not profit, but social connections.
Because that topic touched on some of the Mejiro family's more confidential business planning, Ardan had stopped there and not elaborated further.
But it didn't take a genius to figure out the rest. These businesses were all located around Tracen Main Campus. The people who regularly moved around here were either Umamusume or Trainers, so the intended social targets were obviously those two groups.
Thinking about it that way, could these weird events simply be the Mejiros handing out benefits to Umamusume and Trainers in order to expand the family's influence?
That guess wasn't baseless either. After entering the store, Kitahara had indeed spotted quite a few familiar faces from Tracen Main Campus, many of whom seemed to be in similar situations to his own.
Either the Trainer was short on money, or the Umamusume was short on money, or both were, and after discussing it together, they had come as a pair to take advantage of the deals. That fit his theory well enough.
But when he recalled the strange conditions on the poster by the entrance, Kitahara still felt that something about it was off.
Because if the goal was really just to hand out benefits, there was no reason to make it this convoluted. And there certainly was no reason to put the biggest discounts on Valentine's Day of all days. Even a straightforward student discount would've been more effective than this...
It was just plain weird.
And just as Kitahara was mulling that over, he suddenly noticed Tamamo Cross stop walking.
"What's wrong?" he asked, then followed her gaze.
What he saw was something he recognized—an item that should have been on Tamamo Cross's shopping list. The discount marked on it was even better than what she had written down, practically the same as giving it away for free, except—
[Note: This item may only be purchased after completing Valentine's Day Challenge #12.]
That sentence was posted beside it.
Valentine's Day Challenge #12?
Seeing the text, Kitahara recalled what had been written on the poster earlier.
If he remembered right, Challenge #12 wasn't excessive. It was just a princess carry, and there was no gender restriction either. It had been specifically noted that either a man carrying a woman or a woman carrying a man was acceptable.
That made sense, really. Umamusume weights were what they were, and most Trainers were not in great physical shape, so the rule had obviously been written with Umamusume-Trainer pairs in mind.
"Tama, do you want that?"
Kitahara looked at Tamamo Cross. She hesitated for a moment, then gave a slow nod.
"It is on my list, but that challenge looks kind of troub—"
Before she could finish, Tamamo Cross suddenly felt the hand that had been holding hers let go.
Then, before she could react further, something wrapped around her waist. A moment later, with a slight exertion of force, Kitahara lifted her right up into his arms.
"What's troublesome about that?"
After lifting Tamamo Cross, Kitahara turned to the clerk nearby.
"This should do it, right?"
"Um, just that by itself isn't enough..."
The Umamusume clerk looked at the two of them, then added,
"Our requirement is that you have to hold the pose for at least one minute. During that time, the person being carried has to have their arms around the other person's neck, and you must maintain eye contact throughout."
That didn't sound difficult at all.
Kitahara nodded to show he understood, then looked down at Tamamo Cross in his arms.
As for Tamamo Cross—whether because she really wanted that item or for some other reason—she did not resist at all. With a flush on her face, she wrapped her arms around Kitahara's neck and met his gaze.
Originally, by Kitahara's estimate, all they had to do was maintain a princess carry and make eye contact for one minute. Given his physical ability, he figured he could handle that easily without even borrowing strength from any other Umamusume.
But in practice, after less than ten seconds of eye contact, he noticed Tamamo Cross's gaze starting to drift.
At twenty seconds, her eyes were already visibly unfocused.
By around thirty seconds, she simply lowered her head entirely, her face burning hot.
How can you lower your head during this?
Kitahara was baffled.
But what baffled him even more was that the clerk acted as if she hadn't seen Tamamo Cross's clearly challenge-failing behavior at all. She simply timed out the full sixty seconds on her stopwatch and then declared them successful.
Was her pay so low she was intentionally getting revenge on her boss or something?
Holding the prize they'd won, Kitahara was thoroughly puzzled.
Except as far as he knew, Mejiro family businesses always treated their employees very well, both in wages and benefits. And after Ardan took over, performance had improved enough that the pay of the staff here had even gone up. So that shouldn't have been the reason at all...
Carrying that confusion with him, Kitahara set the slightly trembling Tamamo Cross back down. After handing the prize to her, he continued shopping with her through the store.
Soon enough, because the remaining items were all fairly standard and didn't require any more challenge completions, Tamamo Cross and Kitahara finished buying everything on the list and moved on to the second store.
Like the previous one, the basic condition for participation there was also holding hands.
And with the experience from the first store behind him, Kitahara very naturally took Tamamo Cross's hand and led her inside to begin shopping.
But as they shopped, Kitahara noticed that compared to the previous store, this one offered even steeper discounts—but at the same time had more requirements and more challenges.
Although most of the things Tamamo Cross was buying were everyday items and avoided most of the challenge-locked goods, even so, there were still two items they wanted that required challenge completion before they could be purchased.
A three-legged race and carrying a balloon between their bodies together, huh...
Looking at the challenge descriptions, Kitahara didn't think anything of them and simply pulled Tamamo Cross along to give them a try.
And then...
How did we fail all of them?
Looking at Tamamo Cross in front of him, Kitahara fell into deep suspicion.
The three-legged race was one thing. Given the obvious height difference between them, even though he did his best to match her pace, Tamamo Cross seemed flustered the whole time—whether because it was her first time doing something like that or for some other reason—and lost her balance in an instant, dragging him down with her.
But the balloon challenge shouldn't have failed at all. All they had to do was move a little slower and keep their pace steady.
And yet, three times in a row, either they got too close and burst the balloon, or they were too far apart and let it fall. In all three attempts, they didn't manage to succeed even once.
What was even stranger was that despite their obvious failures, the store employees reacted exactly like the clerk from before, acting as if they hadn't seen anything wrong and simply handing them the prize after the challenge ended.
And based on Kitahara's observation, his situation wasn't even unusual.
Because while he was doing the challenge, there were also two other clearly Tracen-affiliated pairs taking part nearby. One pair passed smoothly, the other failed across the board, and yet both of them received their prizes all the same.
It was weird. Really weird.
But before he could think too much about it, the shopping in that store wrapped up as well, and then the two of them headed for the third store.
Once again they went in holding hands, completed a series of challenges, and got the items they wanted. Then came the fourth, the fifth, the sixth...
Since every store was more or less the same, what happened in them also followed the same basic pattern, with only the challenge contents varying slightly.
And as the number of challenges increased, the two of them gradually became more and more coordinated, until they were finally able to win the challenges together and claim the prizes.
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T/N: kinda on the tamtam x kitahara train now...